Graffiti paints fresh future for Duke of Lancaster 'ghost ship'

Its rusting hull has lain derelict off the North Wales coast for 28 years, a corroding bulk jutting into a dramatic seascape.

The Duke of Lancaster is being transformed by graffiti artists from throughout Europe

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Maurice Blunt had drifted away from the street art scene that defined her teenage years when she spotted the Duke of Lancaster from a train.

For Blunt the moment was an epiphany that left her almost wanting to pull the train’s emergency handle as a vision of “something special” flashed through her mind.

The moment would re-awaken her slumbering enthusiasm for street art and crystallise her role in a movement she both loved and felt semi-detached from.

Her vision was to transform the Duke of Lancaster from a long-forgotten liner into an open-air gallery bedecked in the creations of some of Europe’s edgiest and best-known street artists.

Blunt, who has called her project DuDug (a Welsh play on words for the Black Duke), said: “ I got in touch with some of my old contacts and ran the idea of painting her by them.

“Some were happy to help, others had retired and some new fresh names were thrown into the pot.”

Nowadays she is a 38-year-old Manchester and Dublin-based events coordinator. But Blunt says that although when she was a teenager she admired the work of friends, her own lack of artistic talent meant she was never fully immersed in the culture of street art.

However, DuDug has finally allowed her to carve out a role in the movement she has so long admired – as a fixer bringing together some of its most talented artists on a project like the Duke.

The result is the Duke’s rusting hull is now decorated in a series of arresting images after Blunt convinced the ship’s owners John Rowley and Patricia Scott street art could help revive its faded glory.

Graffiti artists from throughout Europe have contributed to the images now sprayed across the ship’s hull.

Latvian Kiwie sprayed two pirate-like characters, while French painter Goin depicted the Council of Monkeys.

DuDug aims to transform The Duke into the largest open air art gallery in the country.

Blunt says she already has 22 artists signed up to the project and is negotiating with many more.

The ship, which has been docked in the harbour at Mostyn Docks since 1979, had previously been destined to be a floating leisure complex.

But after a number of disputes with the council the owners were unable to progress their plan and it has remained docked and unused since 1984.

Built in 1956 by Harland and Wolff – who famously designed the Titanic – while open in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a fun ship it was the third highest rated attraction in North Wales in terms of visitor numbers.

The Duke’s first class quarters are said to have featured silver service restaurants, state rooms and luxurious cabins when the cruise liner toured around Scotland, Scandinavia and the Mediterranean.

Paul Williams, who is a founder member of 1,000-strong Duke of Lancaster Appreciation Society, said internally the ship has an eerie and ghostly feeling with all its fixtures and fitting surviving from the days when it last functioned as a fun ship.

IT consultant Mr Williams, 44, from Greenfield, in Flintshire, said: “It’s like a time capsule. Her internal fittings are in extremely good condition, with the notable exception of the mindless vandalism of windows being taken out by kids with rifles and catapults.”

Mr Williams, who worked on the ship as a lifeguard coordinator in 1984 and wants to see the whole vessel functioning as a gallery, added: “If you walked into the bar it’s still pretty much as it was when the ship stopped trading.

“The tables are in place, the chairs are all there, the fixtures and fittings in the cafeteria are in extremely good condition.”